


Gladiolus

by Colosseum_Trash



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon (Main Video Game Series), Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pocket Monsters: Sun & Moon | Pokemon Sun & Moon Versions
Genre: Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Child Abuse, Child Neglect, F/M, Gladion and Lillie are emotionally traumatized by their mom, Gladion is hurt, Learning how to love again, Lusamine is bad mom, Lusamine is crazy, Mohn is dead, Moon and Sun are shapeshifters, POV Switches, half breeds?, lots of fear, lots of people die, not really but kinda, or so you thought, shapeshifter hunters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-15
Updated: 2019-12-15
Packaged: 2021-02-18 12:00:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21810523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Colosseum_Trash/pseuds/Colosseum_Trash
Summary: Since she was little Moon has always wondered what it was like to live a human life; however she finds out quickly that despite her hopes, humans are far different then she thought they were. Gladion is a boy coping with the death of his father and the loss of his mother's humanity. A story about overcoming fears and learning that leaning on one another might not be all that bad.Story splits between Gladion's and Moon's POV
Relationships: Gladio | Gladion/Moon, Hau/Lilie | Lillie (Pokemon)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	Gladiolus

**Author's Note:**

> *WARNING*  
> Characters do die in this story so their is definitely some description of blood and violence, but I have tried to cut that to a minimum. Dead bodies are described in this story but not to graphically because my writing isn't that good. OH! ALSO LUSAMINE IS A BAD MOM AND HURTS HER CHILDREN! There are descriptions of child neglect and abuse <\- this is mentioned too, so add that to the warning!
> 
> Author Notes:  
> I started this story a few years ago and have 34 pages in the works for it. Not overly impressive, a lot of it is still drafts but I was hoping by publishing it I could maybe move myself to finish it. Updates probably once every month, I'll try to keep it as Gladion and Moon but I might end up making it one or the other.  
> Also it takes a really long time for the two of them to meet so I'll be editing that too...

The forest smelled like heart-wrenching fear, the scent growing stronger and stronger as the small, light brown rockruff scrambled over undergrowth and under fallen trees. The woods smelt like rotting wood - fear, and every way she ran, the scent grew impregnable and her heart pounded faster. She was only so big and the creatures chasing her were much larger.

Their smell, the Houndours and Stoutlands, mixed with her siblings, along with her own sweat, threw her navigational system completely off balance in her brain. She didn’t know where she was running, she had lost her brothers and her sister by now and she wasn’t sure she could find them again, or even if she was okay to stop running now.

Her tiny legs ached from pumping so furiously and now she was tempted to collapse into the ground and just lay there, just to rest, but again, her nose was a jumble of sweat, big dogs, rotting wood, and her siblings-- and her fear heightened the chaos of her senses. But maybe it was okay to stop. Maybe she could stop now.

Slowly, she came to a halt and laid down so she could rub at her nose, her paws furiously trying to erase the jumble of scents that confused her. Her breathing was heavy and uneven and she gulped in deep breath after deep breath of sweet air. When she stood up, there was only the sound of the chirping Pidgeys and other bird Pokemon in the trees. The wild trees stood tall over her and she felt herself shrinking, until she was an ant in size comparison. There were no other Pokemon around, she was positive. It was just her and the birds.

The little rockruff swept her ears back and forth searching for any other thing that crawled on the forest grounds and there was still nothing. Not even a Caterpie or a Wurmple.

She began to turn around but cold terror made her freeze in place, she was scared to turn around and head back towards the glinting horns on the Houndours and the large bellows of the Stoutlands that seemed to rock her nearly off her feet. And the riders on top of the Stoutlands, the one with the gentle smile packed full of menace. The memory of the desire to destroy in his green eyes made her shiver. He might be back there and he might be waiting for her…

But she was ordinary, a normal rockruff, maybe her fur was a few shades whiter than her oldest brother and her sister, but she had nothing to fear. They were after Sun and his beautiful blue coat. And yet… maybe the man knew she was half-human. A dreaded feeling settled in her chest, sending a chill rolling down each part of her spin. Before her mother had died, humans had hunted what remained of her family because they had known, maybe the green eyed man knew?

The little rockruff shook her head fiercely and pawed at her head. No, he couldn’t know, he shouldn’t know, and if her siblings were in danger, they probably needed her right now.

With a deep breath she took off at an unstable lopping gallop, one paw guiding the other. This had been the longest she had been without one of her siblings and a new panic was beginning to set in. Her father died before she was born, and her mother, only the winter after their first sight, and what if she lost all of her siblings because she ran off? She was scared of being alone, and suddenly it was terrifying to not hear the gentle and soothing breaths and heartbeats of her siblings.

Her heart throbbed so fast, she was certain it would trip suddenly and stop altogether as she ran, but it kept beating and her feat kept pounding against the earth floor. She raised her nose and swiveled her ears. No sign of Sun, Dusk, Dawn, or those strange men. She could almost picture and hear the screams of her siblings, as if they had been captured, she could see Dusk’s stubborn flare of teeth as he fought against the men and other creatures, she could see Dawn in all her gentleness, backing up against a tree as the Houndours growled down at her, her tail tucked and her sharp screams echoing for someone to help.

And Moon ran.

Her chest was heaving when she came to the roadside, and she skidded to a stop, just shy of running straight onto the grimy street. She stood there for sometime, gulping in large deep breaths of air. Then slowly she realized all the smells had cleared away and she could finally do some useful searching. The scent of the larger dogs was like a gentle mist in the air, barely there, but still present. They smelled of a sharp, rusted iron and heavy, heavy layers of fur. She picked her nose higher and then there was suddenly her sister’s scent.

Her head snapped down the street and she bolted, her hind legs pumping furiously. Dawn was somewhere nearby, just down the street, maybe her sister was waiting for her, and they would meet somewhere along the stretch and then they could-

The little rockruff went flying over her own feet as she tripped, and went spinning into the short grass by the road. The small rocks from the road buried themselves into her skin and she groaned as she lay there on her side, the wind nearly knocked out of her. There was definitely a sense of whiplash that came with her fall.

She lifted her head again, praying Dawn had not wandered off somewhere, but her nose was suddenly overpowered with the chilling scent of deep, crimson, red blood.

She rolled away and leapt to her feet, looking back at what had tripped her up so badly. Her sister’s scent came to her and her heart stopped for a minute. She felt faint.

Winters ago she had woken up tucked against Sun, Dawn, and Dusk, her head resting on her mother’s stomach, but it had not been warm, as it usually was. Her mother was cold that morning, and she would remain cold for the rest of her life, lying dead inside their den. Her eyes were open and her body was stiff, but Moon was sure she could not be dead, and didn’t believe it even after Dusk had nudged her away from her mother’s body.

Dawn’s eyes lay open in that same manner, her beautiful black jewels of ebony staring up at the sky looking so alive Moon would have expected her to blink and look over at her if the shadowy haze of death hadn’t have clouded over them. Her petite frame was bent unnaturally, the rocks that studded her neck line, shattered, by some impact, and her front right leg hung uselessly by her side. She had died painlessly. Moon hoped she had at least.

If her stomach hadn’t stopped rising and falling, and if the blood that dribbled down from her nose and mouth were gone, and the blood that pooled under her had vanished, Moon would have believed she would just stand up and give her that same warm friendly wag of her tail and her soft bark before she would bound around her with her overbearing lovable personality. _Let’s go Moon! Let’s have an adventure!_

Dawn had been the social one out of the four of them, and after their mother had died, she had tried to fill in that roll, while Dusk was something of a father to them, even if they were all quadruplets. Her soft fur had been like a cloud of warmth on the coldest of days, and now it was hard to believe that she lay there by Moon’s paws, completely still. Completely lifeless.

Moon wanted to run, but she couldn’t bear to tear her eyes away from her sister’s still form. There was a gruff bark behind her, and Moon felt something like a gravitational pull as she ripped her eyes away from her sister’s unmoving body.

Her brother Dusk stood there studying his two sisters. Moon’s tail unfurled and her ears dropped; she hoped her brother would see her distress and not come and see fully what she saw. But Dusk came towards her anyways. He stared down at Dawn’s body for a while before he slowly nudged Moon away from their sister in a comforting way that was not like Dusk at all. Dusk was their rock, their solid base and support, not their comforter. That was Dawn.

But she was gone.

Moon whimpered against her brother and he continued to push her away. It was wrong, leaving their sister like this, not just a Pokemon, but also a human, a creature that contained a soul, lying dead on the ground by a road where cars moved past without a care in the world. It was wrong to leave her sister there for other wild Pokemon to find or for some road maintenance to come and pick her up and dispose of her body in such an inhuman way.

Her brother growled at her, but she pushed against him. She didn’t want to leave Dawn’s side, she reminded her so much of her mother and in many ways she was the only way Moon managed to hold onto a memory of their mother at all. And now Dusk was pushing her away, and both of them would disappear from her memories forever.

Dusk’s growl became a sharp, panicked bark and then Moon smelled the sweat and rusting iron. Her brother coiled into a small ball and bounded across the street and Moon followed, taking one last glance over her shoulder at her sister’s body just as the Houndour exploded from the treeline, flames licking at their chops.

The two bolted towards the other treeline, where another mad dash for their lives would take place. Her brother barked at her. _Stay with me._

An image of her sister burst into her mind and she inched closer to Dusk. She would not lose another one of her siblings.

The two fled into the trees, jumping over logs, leaping above rivers, and bursting through bushes, the sound of the huge tracking dogs following closely behind.

Moon’s heart jumped as the sweet smell of strawberries reached her nose, a smell that did not quite seem to match the scent of her brother’s blue coat. Dusk’s ears perked up, and then Sun burst onto the trail beside them, his coat lined with sweat. He gave a small yip to let them know everything was alright.

Together, they continued their mad run for hours on end, until they were sure they had lost the creatures and men following them. They sat, side by side, underneath a tree watching the sun go down. Sun did not ask, but Moon was sure he knew, sure that he could smell and see the beautiful rockruff laying still by the street, hours dead, just as she still could.

Once the sun disappeared, the darkness of the sky reminded Moon of the deep sorrow in her dead sister’s ebony black eyes, and from that day, not a dawn would go by that Moon was not pained by the loss of her sister.

#### \--Gladion--

Life had been shades of yellow at it’s best and normally time sucks the color out of things, but in Gladion’s case, one day completely white-washed his entire world. Lillie didn’t understand why they were dressed in black and standing in a graveyard and Gladion didn’t have the heart to explain it to her. Their mother said nothing.

After the funeral, there was only light, white clothing, pristine order and refined neatness. Gladion should have seen the start of her downfall there and then but he had been too ignorant to notice.

Lillie grew more and more fragile with each growing day as she watched her mother stare out into the garden, her slender hand tucked neatly under her chin, as if she was waiting for something to happen; one leg crossed over the other and there she would sit for hours, unmoving, like a ghastly statue with no life in it at all. That was who his mother became.

Unfortunately, that silent ghost was much better than the wailing banshee to come.

Lillie was like a silent angel to Gladion. Though he was a boy, and boys weren’t supposed to have feelings, he’d sit in her room ‘studying’ and watch her play for hours. She was a delicate flower in his life, named for one just as he was. Her calm breaths and gentle heartbeat would be what helped him sleep easy and carry on with life when it got bad. Without their father around, Gladion felt he needed to step into this role, to protect her, even though he was, simply, a mere boy.

His little sister had dropped a glass cup one day. It had been an accident, she had been thirsty, and she stood there staring at the broken little shards for a few minutes unsure of what to do. Gladion had heard the ruckus and had gone downstairs to see what it was, though he was not the first one to find her.

His mother was.

There are certain things young children should not witness when they are younger, or it cripples their minds and sets the stage for a life of agony. This was the case with Gladion as he watched his mother drag Lillie by her hair through those specks and pieces of glass.

Gladion wiped up the blood that stained the white tiles in the kitchen after that, but it felt as though no matter how hard he scrubbed he couldn’t rid the sight of his little sister’s blood from his mind. He couldn’t shake how his little sister’s deep crimson blood tainted that hideous, blanch white that was his mother.

When he was finished, the tile showed now sign of the scene that had happened, no regret, no emotions.

His mother mentioned odd things sometimes, creatures she believed had swept her husband away before she would return to her haunting silence, like a predator that waited for it’s prey. Life for her children became something like walking through a landmine.

Lillie was clumsy when she was small, it had been something Gladion’s family lovingly teased her about, but now it became anxiety for Gladion during every meal or every occasion they were in their mother’s presence.

That night’s dinner, Lillie had dropped her fork on the ground.

Lusamine had sent her off to her room and had cleared away Lillie’s meager meal. Over the past years after her husband's death, Lusamine had become more controlling, in an attempt to make up for being unable to control what had happened to her husband. Without Gladion’s intervention, it was very possible that Lillie would have starved to death.

The hallways seemed to hold their breath as Gladion moved down the hallway at a pace so slow he felt his heart would burst. Every step closer to Lillie’s room seemed to feel like he had been pushed back a mile and more. But he could not rush this process, in fear of waking his mother.

The window at the end of his and Lillie’s hallway cast shadows on the carpet that moved like skeletons in the wind, their limbs flying in circles and intervals without rhyme or reason. At night, Gladion’s and Lillie’s hallway took on an eerie shade of dark green. 

Gladion’s heart relaxed as he finally reached Lillie’s room. He stood up, took a deep breath and very carefully, very quietly opened the door.

Lillie was sitting up in her bed and her eyes flew open wide when she saw him, but they shrunk when she realized it was only her brother. Gladion practically floated across the room to her, his feet scarcely kissing the wooden floor as he danced towards his little sister in a dance of stealth and hush. Lillie’s stomach growled. She could not sleep because she was starving. 

From his pocket, Gladion produced a small roll. It wasn’t much, but it would leave hardly a trace, whereas fruit could be loud and almost always had something that needed to be left behind. Lillie took the roll in her hands, her eyes saying everything her mouth could not say, a silent prayer of thanks, and then Gladion was on his way again, a slow painful crawl back to his room. It was on the way back, he began to pray fervently that his mother would not wake up and find him halfway between his room and Lillie’s room.

He was maybe a yard away from his room when he heard the floorboards in his mother’s room creaking as she made her way across her floor in a stuttery fashion, like a shuffle and a drag that only appeared at night. 

Gladion increased his crawl pace.

He opened his door right as his mother’s own door opened and he quickly stepped inside his room and closed the door behind him. He could not make a dash for his bed, in the fear that his mother would hear and pay him a visit, so he had to continue his slow pace. Outside his mother’s unbalanced gate came quick and fast as she turned the corner to their hallway. His heart raced, one step, two steps, he covered the ground between his bed and the door as fast as possible. Gladion practically dove into his bed when he reached it and quickly pulled the covers around him, trying to still his breathing.

The door to his room creaked open and he didn’t dare look at his mother, who would be regarding him like a possessed demon as she thought he slept. He did not relax until she had opened and closed both his and Lillie’s door without a word.

There was the shuffle of her feet and the soft muttering from her lips as she made her way back down the hall and to her room, and then Gladion was left alone in the dark.


End file.
